Surprises!
by The Anonymous Mouse
Summary: One-shot. LazyTown fan, Emily, wins a visit to LazyTown, but when she arrives she finds things aren't as she had expected.


_This is a rather odd one-shot which is vaguely deep and meaningful. Hope you enjoy it!_

_I have changed the title, as I hated the last one, It was very late. I hate doing titles anyway._

**_Lazytown and everything associated with it, belong to a genius in Iceland under the name Magnus Scheving._**

Emily tried to sleep - however it was hard to reach. Her mind was filled with excitement. Rolling over on her bed, she removed the well-read letter, which lived under her pillow.

_Dear Emily_, it said. _You have won the 'Draw Sportacus and his friends in LazyTown competition' and therefore have won the top prize of a free week-long trip to LazyTown. Please find travel details overleaf, _etc. But the travel details didn't matter to her – she was too happy about going to LazyTown tomorrow and meeting her idol, the hero, Sportacus. Gripping the battered letter tightly she turned on her back and gradually drifted in a brightly coloured, childish dream, painted in luminous pinks, bright blues and strong yellows, the letter locked in a death like grip.

On the plane Emily grinned, she was on her way! She had panicked on the way, unsure of whether to dress in blue or pink. She hadn't wanted to offend either Sportacus or Stephanie, so in the end she had followed her mum's advice and worn her normal clothes – showing her own personality. She had also spent hours in front of her bedroom mirror, trying to sort her awful appearance out. All she saw when she had looked in her mirror was an ugly, tall, frizzy haired, ten year old, with braces. She had tried to change her dull appearance, but failed to do much. After noticing how much she was worried, her mum had tied her hair into plaits to make it less wild.

However now everything was ok. She was almost in LazyTown and soon she would be meeting everyone in LazyTown. The plane touched down and she felt a jolt of excitement that corresponded with the bounce of the landing.

"Wow!" she gasped in amazement. Exiting the plane she saw that the fairytale coloured landscape really existed. How were the trees so green? And the sky – it was almost too blue!

"Amazing isn't it?"

Emily whirled around, heart jumping in surprise and excitement, to see the pink-haired speaker.

"Hi, I'm Stephanie"

"I'm Emily," she said by means of reply. Stephanie gave her a welcoming embrace and smiled a smile of pure happiness.

"I'm so excited! It's been ages since someone new came to LazyTown – well except Robbie in his disguises, but that doesn't count. Anyway, come and meet everyone." Stephanie gripped Emily's wrist firmly and ran – dragging her to meet the other inhabitants of LazyTown – however Emily soon started to run too and the two girls ended up racing to the rest of the town's citizens.

"You won't meet Sportacus yet," Stephanie explained "He's out of town today. He sends his apologies and promises to be here tomorrow." She grinned and turned to the array of people gathered around to meet her.

"This is my uncle, Mayor Meanswell and this is Bessie" Stephanie began and Emily smiled and shook hands with the adults and smiled shyly and the children she would be spending the next week with.

"And this is Robbie Rotten" Robbie waved but looked extremely reluctant to be there.

"We had to bribe him to come and meet you," Stephanie whispered "That's why Sportacus is out of town today – to make Robbie happy." Emily turned around and realised that Robbie had already snuck away and vanished, but Stephanie didn't seem to mind.

"I know," she decided "Let's play basketball!"

An exciting sports game and a tour of Lazytown later, the kids started to get ready to go home.

"You can camp out on my bedroom floor with me, all of you." Stephanie invited all of them. "We'll have camp beds, and we'll stay up late, talking and…"

"Sure!" Emily said, as she has realised that Stephanie had a habit of getting over excited about things.

In the end only Trixie, Emily and Stephanie slept over. They huddled in their sleeping bags, discussing everything - from funny stories of LazyTown, to what Emily's town was like. Finally she had the courage to ask: "What's Sportacus like?"

"Amazing!"

"Fantastic!"

"He's so helpful"

"You'll see tomorrow, Emily. You'll meet him and see what we mean." Stephanie assured her.

Finally it was time to meet Sportacus - the town hero. Stephanie had sent a letter to Sportacus through the message tube to the airship, and the kids were waiting for him to arrive.

"Sportacus!"

Emily felt the rush of speed as the slightly above average hero jumped down behind her. She turned around and smiled, as her face set, like stone.

"Hello, I'm Sportacus!" he announced.

"H-h-hi." She stammered. He was so – different!

She looked harder at him. He had shining blue eyes surrounded by wrinkles and lines showing his age and inner exhaustion. His hair wasn't the brilliant brown of the TV where she worshipped him; instead it was greying, thin and wispy. He was around the same height as her despite her being far younger than him. His muscles weren't as large as she had expected and his eyebrows were thinning.

Disappointment settled into her stomach – her hero, whom she had presumed to be in his early twenties, was really a man who had grown old and was far older than she had expected.

She realised that she had been staring, however Sportacus didn't react or show signs that he cared. She hid her shock with shyness and reluctantly took his hand and shook it. He still had a strong firm grip and could have hurt her if he wanted to.

"Hi, I'm Emily."

"Hey Sportacus, show Emily what you can do!"

Sportacus shocked Emily again with a set of flips and jumps that showed his flexibility and speed.

"Wow!" she said but her heart wasn't in her words and to her own ears it sounded like she was putting too much emphasis and interest in the syllable to compensate for this.

However no one seemed to notice,

"If you want to visit the airship anytime you can" Sportacus offered

"Umm… actually I'd quite like to look around the fields around LazyTown, to look at the wildlife." Emily lied feeling awkward. "It's a hobby of mine."

Sportacus' crystal suddenly started beeping,

"Someone's in trouble!" he said in his usual powerful voice, "Got to go! See you soon! Bye!" He sprinted off and was soon gone from sight.

"Hey, Emily, do you want me to come with you to the fields?" Stephanie asked

"No, don't worry I'll go on my own, it's very boring – go play baseball or something." Emily did not mention that the real reason was to go and sort her head out.

"Ok! See you around! Have fun!" Stephanie yelled and was gone too.

Emily wandered around the outskirts of LazyTown, on her own – bitterly upset. All her dreams of a gorgeous superhero, dashing around and saving people had been smashed! She sat down on a bench and started to cry softly. She was so confused – but why was she so upset?

Suddenly, next to her someone asked: "Are you ok?"

She spun round, almost jumping out of her seat and found Sportacus sitting next to her. Why did everyone in LazyTown sneak up on her and surprise her?

"How did you know that I was here?" Emily demanded gently. In response Sportacus pointed to his crystal.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked.

"Yes - I mean no - I mean," She took a deep breath "You're just so different to how I thought you'd be. I thought you'd be younger." she admitted bashfully.

"I thought I was younger too," Sportacus admitted and grinned, "However I seem to age every time I look in the mirror." Emily looked at Sportacus again, this time she noticed the age and weariness less and the natural beauty of his face more. It wasn't all patched up and glued like a model's face, but it was the face of someone who had lived a life and had a story to tell.

"I'm sorry, it was just odd." Emily admitted

"In many ways I wish I was younger, but I don't really mind anymore. I can do most things I could do when I was younger, but now I have more experience at saving people. I still try new things – like this" he did a forwards flip and then from his landing spot he flipped backwards against his momentum. "I couldn't do that last month." he said returning to his seat.

"The most important thing to remember is that it's not what's on the outside that matters, it's what's in here that counts," he said pointing at her heart. "And you know what?" He whispered into her ear.

The rest of the week flew by – they played more sports than Emily knew existed. When it was time to leave, she said her goodbyes with a heavy heart – she had really bonded with everyone. She hugged all the kids goodbye, then turned to the superhero, as she said goodbye to Sportacus she noticed something new; hidden in the ageing face she saw that his eyes were shining bright blue and filled with eternal youth. They were so joyful and happy, childish emotions, magnifying the youthful man trapped in an ageing body. But he wasn't trapped – he enjoyed every moment of it, he loved who he was and still had the power to save people. He was a true hero.

"Thanks Sportacus – you opened my eyes."

"No, thank you Emily" they embraced briefly, then Emily turned and entered the plane. The last sight she got of LazyTown was of five kids and an ever-youthful man – like an elf – an eternal legend.

Emily smiled to herself on the plane home – Sportacus was right, it didn't matter how she looked – she could still be a hero like him. And she wasn't even that ugly, after all, how many other people could say that a superhero had called them beautiful.

_Ta da, told you it was odd. I don't know where it came from, except a fear of disappointment that I have. Btw I am the same height as Sportacus, which was a surprise, given that I am not exactly tall. R & R but no matter what you say this will probably remain a one-shot, sorry._

_And sorry for those who are waiting for my other story, I just needed to finish this first and get it out of my way._


End file.
